The present invention relates to a power plug having a leakage protection function, i.e., ground fault circuit interrupter (abbreviated as GFCI), and refers in particular to a power plug having a leakage protection function that is installed onto a household appliance such as an air conditioner, a refrigerator, or a television.
At present, people connect household appliances to the utility power supply via power plugs; the majority of power plugs that are currently commercially available are structured so as to comprise a casing, two or three externally exposed pins and a power cable wire connected to the pins being installed onto the casing, such that a direct and fixed connection is made between the power cable wire of the power plug and a power contact on a circuit board inside the appliance, thus forming an electrical connection. When there is a need to use a household appliance, the pins of the power plug need only be inserted into the socket to achieve a connection between the household appliance and the utility power supply. Because the interior of such power plugs does not possess a leakage protection structure, pulling the pins out creates a leakage failure with a live wire, neutral wire, and ground wire; the live, neutral, and ground wires encounter a leaking fault, and a short-circuiting failure occurs between the live and neutral wires on the output terminal of the power plug, and the household appliance suffers direct damage. There have already appeared a number of power plugs having leakage protection functions; despite the ability thereof to cut off the power supply when a failure occurs in order to act to protect the household appliance, these power plugs have at present a relatively more complicated internal structure, which is not suited for mass production, and thus there is a need to solve the above problems.